Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Singular Gryphon is my "other" Singular bike in the stable. I had originally set it up with Salsa Cycles Woodchippers, but I never really took to those bars. They were "okay" for me, but I like On One Midge Bars, Luxy Bars, and the Salsa Cycles Cowbell bars a whole lot better.

So I took a set of extra Luxy Bars I had and dedicated them to going on the Gryphon. It just took a while to get around to getting them on there. There also was some other work to be done before the bike got to the point it is at now.

For one thing, I was switching up wheels on it. I decided to get my dusty old Chris King wheels with Stan's Flow rims going again. There was a broken spoke nipple to address, and then new tape and mounting the Vee Rubber X-C-X tires tubeless. Then I got a different stem lined up, since the old Thomson stem was a 25.4mm one and I needed a 31.8mm stem. New tape and a switch of the Brooks saddles and here ya go!

I still need bar end plugs, to clean up the drive train some more, and to just clean up this bike overall. Then I should be good for some long, slow miles of gravel whenever the single speed fit takes me.

Am well jealous of your Luxy bars GT; yours too, Ari;) I built my Gryphon a few months after Ragley stopped producing them and they couldn't be had for love nor money, so went with Midges instead. While I'm fairly happy with the Midge, the couple of niggles I do have look like they'd be solved by the Luxy geometry, which, on paper, looks perfect. Did ask Brant if he'd consider making a more Luxy-like Midge, but it seems my generous offer to buy two sets was not tempting enough for him to bring a new product to market:)

Hi Ted,I've been running the Luxy on my Gryphon for two years now and still can't get over how great they are.Had a Midge previously, and when these came out couldn't resist the opportunity to grab 'em before they were gone- so glad I did!Some pics of the bike before and after I installed a Phil BB and RS8X crankset can be seen here:http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/singular-photos-post-here-645042-13.html